It has been recognized that energy is the common link across all fields in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, education and research. Virtually every discipline investigates some aspect of energy, including history, humanities, public policy, global relations, human and ecosystem health, economics, technology, physics, geology, ecology, business management, environmental science and engineering. The concept of energy applies at all levels of formal education and lifelong learning, and includes many topics and tools that motivate successful learning.
Although there is a wealth of information about energy spread across many books, journals, websites and disciplines, the information is not logically connected to provide a meaningful resource that may be easily accessed and used in efforts to reduce energy usage and, ultimately, attain net zero energy operations or energy sustainability.
In addition, information needed to attain energy sustainability for a residential or commercial building typically is not provided in real time and in a useful manner. For example, utility bills for a commercial enterprise that operates an office building usually arrive 30-45 days after energy is consumed, after which the bill is paid by an accounts payable department and then filed away. Energy usage, and the results of any efforts to reduce energy consumption, typically are not known or evaluated other than once a year, such as when a budget is prepared for the following year or an energy audit is performed. In most cases, only a few people associated with the commercial enterprise are made aware of the amount of energy usage by the enterprise. The owner of the enterprise, thus, may learn only after energy usage has occurred that energy usage may have changed significantly. By such time, it is too late to act to change energy usage and, thus, the overall energy consumption behavior of the facility. Furthermore, increased energy usage for a prior year may impact the overall budget for the enterprise for the next year, for example, by causing reduced expenditures for building maintenance and capital improvements that may reduce energy consumption. Although an energy audit may be obtained and renewable energy funding from state or federal agencies may be available, budgetary constraints resulting from increased energy usage in the prior year often cause the owner of the enterprise to not take actions to reduce energy usage that involve additional expenditures. Consequently, energy consumption, and also the carbon footprint of the enterprise, typically increase from year to year for the enterprise.
Further, the energy consumption information provided by a utility typically is complex and in a raw form, which makes evaluation of the energy consumption information a very difficult, tedious and error prone process. As a result, energy consumption is not evaluated in real time, such that actions cannot be taken to change energy consumption behavior in real time, for example, before the next monthly utility bill is received.
In addition, guidance on actions that may be taken to reduce the environmental impact resulting from energy usage is not readily available. Commercial buildings are the largest source of CO2 emissions, and efforts are underway to reduce these emissions by the private and public sectors. Typical efforts to reduce emissions use monthly utility bills, and the data from the bills is entered manually and then analyzed on a periodic basis during the year. Notably, the information is available only after the energy has been consumed and billed by the utility company.
More recently, real time energy meters, such as real time power meters, that make energy consumption information available in real time, have been installed in many buildings. The energy consumption information, although provided in real time, still typically is in the form of charts, graphs and reports that, like the energy consumption information in monthly utility bills, requires time and the use of specialized skills and knowledge of energy specialists to interpret and understand. In addition, although some real time power meters may provide information on a display showing power usage in real time, complicated and time consuming interpretation of the displayed information, similar to that required to understand the energy information provided in tabular or chart form, must be performed to determine what actions should be taken, in view of the displayed energy usage. The availability of real time energy consumption information, thus, has not meaningfully impacted efforts to attain energy sustainability.
It is believed that investment in energy management can have a positive impact on reducing expenses and stimulating the economy through the development of jobs and expertise in the local energy services industry. The general unavailability of guidance on what actions should be taken to attain energy sustainability, however, has resulted in efforts to attain energy sustainability being unsuccessful, and sometimes abandoned when the lack of success is coupled with costly investment in actions with little success in return.
Therefore, there exists a need for system and method to manage resource sustainability performance of a facility and provide sustainability feedback information in real time to cause actions to be taken in real time to attain resource sustainability at a facility.